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Tuesday, March 16, 2010

Coleen Rowley Makes Some Sense

In this interview at Antiwar.com. I've slammed her a few times for failing to articulate clearly that she doesn't believe that the government allowed the 9-11 attacks to happen, but here at least it is clear that what she is talking about is how some incompetence (particularly at the CIA) resulted in the attacks not being stopped.

And there I find it hard to disagree with her. She points out that the Moussaoui case was brought to DCI George Tenet's attention in August of 2001, in a Power Point presentation entitled "Islamic Extremist Learns to Fly". She makes the interesting point that it was not Moussaoui's laptop computer that contained the information that would have linked him back to KSM and Ramzi Bin-al-Shibh; rather items in his personal possession.

I suspect her case on the preventable nature of 9-11 is weaker than she claims; even if they had traced Moussaoui back to KSM, would that have revealed the hijacking teams? I don't know, but certainly it would have resulted in a lot of attention being given to Muslims learning to fly in the US.

We spend a lot of time here debunking the 9-11 Truthers for their fantasies of controlled demolition and the missile at the Pentagon. So I was disappointed that Coleen showed up at a 9-11 Truth conference to lend them some of her credibility. But after listening to this interview, my sense is that Rowley's no kook. She's clearly very much anti-war, but that's not a kook position, even if it's not my position.

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'I suspect her case on the preventable nature of 9-11 is weaker than she claims; even if they had traced Moussaoui back to KSM, would that have revealed the hijacking teams?'

Even if the CIA and FBI had this tip off prior to 9/11, they'd still have to arrest Khalid. If he was in Taliban-ruled Afghanistan, they'd have no chance. If he was in Pakistan, chances are that the ISI wouldn't have played ball.

At a high level, Rowley's narrative, like that of John Farmer of the 9/11 Commission, is so far from reflecting the true nature of 9/11 that using her as a reference point is a reflection of the desperation to maintain life by a wrongly condemned 9/11 truth movement.

You sound like a parrot, Walt. You repeat words without understanding them.

Is my request for an explanation as to Iran's failure to produce evidence linking Rigi with the Great Satan as doomed as my request for an explanation as to how and when Omar Saeed Sheikh was recruited by SIS? To remind you - was it while he was in an Indian jail from 1994-1999, and did the Brits (or Mossad) orchestrate the Indian Airlines hijacking that got him released?

Oh right, so an unknown Afghan-American says that the Taliban wanted to hand over their main ally. He also claimed that the Americans offered to make him President as well. Does that sound real?

Returning to Planet Earth, note the following:

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2001/09/11/world/main310852.shtml

'The rejection came in a statement by Abdul Salam Zaeef, the Taliban ambassador to Pakistan. Asked whether the Taliban would hand over bin Laden, Zaeef said, "No." But his translator said, "No, not without evidence."'

So the Taliban's 'diplomat' says 'No' outright, and the 'terp adds the 'not without evidence bit'. Clear?

If you'd read Daniel Benjamin and Steven Simon's 'Age of Sacred Terror' (see pp.273-275) you'd realise that even before 9/11 the Taliban responded to US demands to hand over OBL by lying through their teeth, and inventing different excuses for why they couldn't comply. The US government did actually hand over evidence of OBL's complicity in the 7th August 1998 Nairobi and Dar-es-Salaam bombings to Mullah Omar's regime (in response to the latter's statement that they'd hand him over if they had any corroboration), and heard nothing afterwards.

Just asking Sack-ak-ak-ackie,but did all this transpire before or after Colin Powell promised the world a "white paper" laying out the proof that bin-Laden was behind 9/11? One thing we do know is that bin Laden denied,on al-Jazeera the day after 9/11 and in a later interview with a Pakistani newspaper,that he had anything to do with it.Strange behavior for a guy looking to ignite the clash of civilisations and unleash all those sleeper cells around the US,wouldn't you say?

" Arhoolie the Cyber-Hero said... Just asking Sack-ak-ak-ackie,but did all this transpire before or after Colin Powell promised the world a "white paper" laying out the proof that bin-Laden was behind 9/11? One thing we do know is that bin Laden denied,on al-Jazeera the day after 9/11 and in a later interview with a Pakistani newspaper,that he had anything to do with it.Strange behavior for a guy looking to ignite the clash of civilisations and unleash all those sleeper cells around the US,wouldn't you say?"

'One thing we do know is that bin Laden denied,on al-Jazeera the day after 9/11 and in a later interview with a Pakistani newspaper,that he had anything to do with it.'

Yet again, Walt fucks up. The al-Jazeera 'denial' was a written statement (rather than an audio or video recording), and there is no confirmation that it came from OBL. The 'interview' that Walt refers to was actually a list of questions that the Pakistani paper (The Daily Ummat) submitted to Taliban officials, rather than a face-to-face discussion. As anyone with a brain would conclude, neither of these can be verified as genuine denials issued by OBL:

http://911myths.com/html/responsibility.html

And this doesn't of course account for the repeated admissions of responsibility by OBL and other al-Qaeda figures (KSM - well before his arrest - and Ayman al-Zawahiri). Or indeed the statements of lesser members of AQ on what they call 'the victorious invasion of Manhattan':

Now, talking of evidence and of unsubstantiated claims, it's been nearly a month now since the Iranians caught Abdolmalek Rigi. When they got him, they said that they had evidence linking him to the CIA, and that the Americans were directing Jundollah's attacks in Iran. Since then, nothing more has been heard.

Why should that be, Walt? Could it be that the Iranian authorities were actually lying, and that you were the only mug in the Western world stupid enough to fall for it?

I stand corrected,it was all in 911myths.com the whole time.What could I have been thinking? Imagine the ludicrous position the Debunker Cult and the completely addled SackofDiapers find themselves in.They're trying to argue that the CIA just wouldn't do that kind of thing.Morons unite!!

Walt, I'm sorry, I don't speak retard, so you're going to have to clarify your comment. Are you basically admiting now that the Iranians have no evidence linking Jundollah to the CIA, and that you were stupid enough to believe their claims despite this?